


Don't Ask

by morrezela



Category: JAG
Genre: Closeted Character, Conversations, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Slice of Life, Undefined Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:21:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7822987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harm comes home to find Clayton Webb cooking him dinner. It is a bit unusual even for a relationship that is defined by how they avoid defining it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Ask

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shorina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shorina/gifts).



> I set this in a period sometime between 'Webb of Lies' and 2003 when Massachusetts became the first US state to legalize gay marriage. Don't Ask; Don't Tell was, of course, very much still governing over the US military. 
> 
> The whole Webb/MacKenzie relationship never happens.

The smell of food cooking hit Harm’s nose as soon as he swung his apartment door open. Automatically, his mind raced to map out the quickest route to his sidearm. He blinked before shaking his head. He’d had his apartment broken into more times than he cared to think about. Nobody who meant to hurt him had ever cooked dinner.

 

“You know, I could’ve shot you,” he commented with a lazy drawl as he came up behind the man cooking dinner on his stove.

 

“Highly unlikely,” Clayton answered him. “The lights are on, so you’d see me before shooting. And I doubt you’d want to explain to Admiral Chegwidden just what, exactly, I was doing in your apartment.”

 

“He’d just assume you were up to no good – _again_ ,” Harm pointed out.

 

“Right. Because I always need to cook you dinner to get you to do something for me,” Clay scoffed as he added more pepper to the bubbling pot. “Chegwidden isn’t dumb, Harm. You know it, and I know it.”

 

“Doesn’t stop you from poking at him,” Harm pointed out. Sometimes he wished that Clay would be just a little less antagonistic.

 

“It’s a mutual love-hate relationship,” Clay reasoned.

 

“Love-hate? Should I be worried?” Harm teased. His hands found their way to Clay’s hips just in time to feel the other man freeze at his words.

 

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” Clay said though his tone sounded off.

 

Harm rubbed his thumbs over the back of Clay’s waist, feeling nothing but tense muscle. “What’s got you so wound up?”

 

“Nothing,” Clay lied. Harm hated that he sounded normal, relaxed, carefree. If not for the signals his body was giving out, Harm would think he was telling the truth.

 

“You’re mad at me,” Harm hazarded a guess. It wouldn’t be unusual. God knew that they were at each other’s throats more often than not.

 

Clay blew a long, slow breath out of his mouth. “No. No, I’m not. It’s just been a weird week for me.”

 

“I’ll bet. This isn’t exactly normal for you. Not that I don’t appreciate dinner, but you’re more the, ‘Fuck me quickly so I can get to my tennis match,’ type.”

 

“Your stereotyping of me remains one of your most charming features,” Clay drawled sarcastically.

 

“I just meant…”

 

“I know what you meant,” Clay interrupted. “Can we just not fight right now?”

 

“Okay. Okay,” Harm agreed. “Do you want to go lay down?” It was a fair question. Normally they’d be naked by now. Clayton Webb liked pretense before sex, like they were or even could be legitimate lovers, but pretense was usually all it was. For a guy who still wore a three piece suit, his sex drive was nowhere near as buttoned up.

 

“Would you believe me if I said I have a headache?” Clay asked, finally turning his face towards Harm’s.

 

The lines on his forehead were more prominent than usual. Though he was as put together as ever, something about the look of pain in his eyes made him look like he’d gone three rounds with a boxer and lost.

 

“You need to sit down,” Harm ordered, dragging Clay to a nearby stool. This wasn’t their relationship. They didn’t technically _have_ a relationship beyond a weird sort of friendship that never sat well with Harm’s definition of the term.

 

“I’m fine,” Clay protested. “You don’t need to mother hen me.”

 

“Oh yeah? Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Harm asks. “Sit. Stay. I’ll get you some ibuprofen.”

 

An aggravated sigh echoed after Harm as he dug in his medicine cabinet, but Clay was still sitting when Harm turned back around. That was worrisome. Webb wasn’t one to do what Harm asked without protest.

 

“You’re really not doing well, are you?” Harm asked as he handed the pills over along with a glass of water. “Can you talk about it?”

 

“My cousin Louise is getting married this weekend. The bridal party is staying at home. Mother is delighted.” It was not the sort of explanation that Harm had been expecting. Given the nature of Clay’s profession, Harm had been expecting some needlessly complicated piece of political intrigue.

 

“Weddings are usually happy occasions,” Harm was careful with how spoke, not interjecting judgment into his cadence.

 

“Oh the family is over the moon,” Clay told him. “Ecstatic. Already talking about kids. Already asking, ‘When are you going to make some woman happy, Clayton?’”

 

“I’m sure they just want you to be happy,” Harm tried to console him. The instant he said it, he could tell it was the wrong thing to say.

 

Clay’s, “Right,” was scathing. He moved to stand up.

 

“Sit back down,” Harm said, gently pushing him back down on the stool.

 

“I can’t just marry somebody, Harm. You know that. It’s not even legal, and I won’t just marry some poor woman so I can give her money instead of love. I’m not my father.” Clay sounded angry, bitter.

 

Harm paused for a second before saying, “I didn’t know that about your father. Your mother seemed to love him.”

 

“She did. Probably still does. They were good friends.” Something like a smile lightened Clay’s face for a moment. If Harm were to guess, he’d suppose a happy memory.

 

“But,” Clay continued, “it still tore her apart, knowing that she wasn’t ‘right’ for him. That every time he was somewhere he couldn’t be recognized, he was picking up one lover or another. I won’t do that to another person. I know you don’t think so, but I do have lines I won’t cross.”

 

“Hey, I don’t think that. Come on. You know me better than that,” Harm reminded him. “I’m not in the habit of inviting people like that home with me.”

 

“No, the psychos just find their way here all on their own.”

 

“Was that a joke?” Harm teased, desperate to ease the tension in the room.

 

“An observation,” Clay corrected. He stood up again, this time batting away Harm’s gentle hands. “This needs to be stirred before everything sticks to the bottom of the pot.”

 

“I could’ve done it.”

 

An amused snort was all the answer Harm got for his offer. Normally, he would have pursued the meaning of that disparaging sound, defended his cooking capabilities. But Clay, for all his faults, wasn’t normally in this bad of a mood. Treading carefully was a must in this particular situation.

 

“There are groups, you know,” Harm suggested softly, “protestors and lawyers working on rights recognition and marriage laws.”

 

“Being openly gay in a government job is committing career suicide. You know that. I don’t have a beard in every country because I like it.” Clay stops stirring for a moment. “I used to wish I had your problems,” he admitted, an apologetic glance tossed over his shoulder.

 

Harm has heard words like that before. Being bisexual brings its own world of problems when it comes to the dating arena. There are those who think he’s promiscuous, that he just wants to fuck everybody. He has been told he’s just lying to himself by more than one boyfriend. They like to tell him he’s just in denial, clinging to his straightness when he’s really just gay.

 

And there are those who envy him because he can be with a woman. They assume it is easy being bisexual because he can still be straight, ‘still’ have that white picket fence life. Being in the military tends to fuel their assumptions. Nobody with the kind of career ambitions he has is going to let himself earn the reputation of being gay.

 

It isn’t easy, though. While his friends and coworkers will smile, laugh or even cheer him on towards the next girlfriend, Harm knows it would be a different story if they caught him looking at a man. He has been hypervigilant for so long now that it is easy to avert his eyes and pretend like he isn’t aroused by the male form.

 

He has to be. The Navy is his life. It is all he ever wanted. But that doesn’t stop him from wishing it was different. He wishes that he could date a handsome man as easily as he can a beautiful woman.

 

But Harm knows that Clayton is right. Even if Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell is repealed tomorrow, ingrained prejudices will still prevail. As much as he knows it shouldn’t be so, it will be. Progress doesn’t happen in a day.

 

“I ran into Owen Michaels the other day,” Clay mentions the name offhandedly. It is a subject change, but not a particularly welcome one.

 

Harm lets his eyebrows raise. “What did he want?” Harm asks.

 

“To adjust our arrangement,” Clay responds as he turns the burner off and digs through Harm’s cupboards for bowls.

 

Harm swallows. His heart beats faster as he thinks about the situation and agreement that Clay came to with Michaels.

 

Two years ago, Clay had found Harm at a gay friendly, quiet restaurant while Harm was on a date the fellow Navy officer. A CIA sting had been about to happen, and Clay had rushed Harm and Owen out the door. Harm is still grateful for that. The last thing he needs or needed was to be a pawn in a less scrupulous CIA Agent’s game.

 

Clay can be duplicitous, but he isn’t without a conscience. He’s loyal. When it comes down to it, he is a friend. Harm isn’t one to hold grudges against Mac when they’re playing prosecutor and defense. He tries not to be a hypocrite when it comes to Navy vs CIA interests.

 

When Harm broke up with Owen, it had been nasty. Threats were made. For a solid week, Harm had dreaded being called into Chegwidden’s office, certain that he had been informed of Harm’s homosexual dalliances.

 

During one of those meetings, Clay had been present under the pretense of an ‘exchange of information’ to negotiate.  The admiral had assigned Harm to the project. When they walked back to his office and Clay locked the door behind him, Harm had assumed that he was just being paranoid.

 

“You don’t have to worry, you know,” Clay had said. He had pretended to rifle through the file folder in his hands. “I took care of Michaels.”

 

Harm had found a small packet of papers thrown onto his desk. A picture Owen with a pregnant woman, surrounded by four children had been on the top.

 

“He’s married?” Harm had been shocked.

 

“Mmm. Rather good at hiding it too. Uses a self-tanning solution to blend into the tan lines on his ring finger. I told him that if he ever threatened one of my friends again, he’d regret it,” Clay had said in one of the most conversational tones Harm had ever heard him use.

 

“Thank you. I’m really grateful for this,” Harm hadn’t been able to keep the relief out of his voice.

 

“Don’t be,” Clay had waved him off with a vague hand gesture. “We all live in fear of being outed, Harm. Michaels is filth for trying to use that fear against you.”

 

That small sentence is how Harm found out Clayton Webb is gay. It is the sentence that eventually lead to them having a sort of standing dalliance with each other. Harm knows Clay can and will keep his secrets.

 

“What happened?” Harm manages to finally ask when Clay places the bowl down on the island countertop before him.

 

“He came whining about how he was getting a divorce because his wife caught him balls deep in another man. Seemed to think that because he was ‘ruined’ that I couldn’t make it worse, so he thought he’d blackmail me over blackmailing him,” Clay explains.

 

“And how’d that work out?” Harm asks. “Also, what is this?”

 

“This is ciopinno made with the finest ingredients that your wallet can’t afford, so you should enjoy it. As for Michaels, well, he left with his tail tucked between his legs and a healthy fear for men in, and I quote, ‘Goddamned pretty boy suits with more money than brains.’”

 

“I’m trying to picture you being terrifying,” Harm says as he digs into his food. It is fancier than what he normally goes for, but that is his relationship with Clay in a nutshell. It’s different and more expensive. He doesn’t quite know what to call it, and he’s not sure he wants to know.

 

“I’ll have you know that most people find having their dirty laundry aired to the world a frightening prospect. They don’t like it when you know things you shouldn’t,” Clay says.

 

“Like what my wallet can and can’t afford?” Harm asks.

 

“I didn’t need to get into your financial statements to know that. Summations of average salaries and expenses work just fine.”

 

“So your family is driving you crazy, and you chased off my ex. Anything else I should know about your week?” Harm asks.

 

“Nothing I can tell you,” Clay tells him. “So if we’re doing normal people conversations why don’t you tell me about your week?”

 

Harm pauses, squints at the all too normal expression on Clay’s face. It is a cover, one he has seen far too often. Clay is done being open. His comments about his father and his sexuality might as well have never happened.

 

Prying isn’t going to do any good. He will just find a way to avoid answering. Like, Harm realizes, bring up a topic like Owen Michaels. There is no doubt in Harm’s mind that Clay purposely reserved that information as a way to stop discussing his personal problems.

 

Harm suspects it isn’t the first time that Michaels has been to Clay’s office, trying to weasel his way out of their agreement. It’s just the first time Clay has mentioned it to him.

 

The question of why Clay even brought up any of this rests on the tip of Harm’s tongue, but he doesn’t ask the question. Instead he says, “Why do I have the feeling you already know how my week went?”

 

It is the right decision as it earns him a rare smile. “Because you’re smarter than the average lawyer,” Clay answers him. “I’d like to hear it from your perspective though.”

 

The night passes in an oddly comfortable way for them. They speak about mundane, inconsequential things. When Harm finally gets his hands on Clay’s body, it isn’t the frenzied passion that their sex normally is. It feels more like comfort and security.

 

When they are done, Clay curls into his side instead of gathering his things and leaving. Harm doesn’t say anything. For the first time, he falls asleep to the warmth of Clay’s body by his side.

 

That same warmth isn’t there when he wakes up the next morning. “Never figured you for the leave before they wake up type, Webb,” Harm grumbles to himself as he rises. There is a note propped up by a recently washed coffee cup when he makes it out to his kitchen.

 

**I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. If I could have, I would have at least made you breakfast.**

**You might see me later today.**

 

Clay hasn’t signed the note, but Harm expects that he rarely does. Even though handwriting analysis could tie it directly to him, adding a signature creates even more of paper trail. But that little fact isn’t what captures Harm’s attention.

 

What he notices is the dark section scribbled out between ‘breakfast’ and ‘You.’ Clay must have been too tired to find another piece of paper or too exhausted to notice that his words are still legible.

 

  **That seems to be how I feel about you all the time though. ‘If I could have, I would have.’**

 

Harm wonders what that means, wonders if he should do anything about it. He thinks about asking Clay, but knows he can’t.


End file.
